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Harris, Asalee, 1933-
Asalee Harris was born in Fortune Fork, a little place outside of Tallulah, Louisiana, on the road to Vicksburg, Mississippi. A family of sharecroppers, the cotton farming was arduous and eventually they moved to Tallulah. She married and her husband's brothers lived in Las Vegas so in 1954 Asalee and James joined them.
Person
Bañuelos-Benitez, Laurents, 1994-
Las Vegas native and graduate of Clark High School; son of Mexican and Salvadoran immigrants. High school English teacher at Rancho and former student worker on the Latinx Voices project.
Person
Franco, Dick, 1952-
Richard Francis or Dick Franco, his stage name, by which he is more commonly known, has been juggling for over 50 years, having learned the art while he was still in high school. Taught by prominent juggling legends in Vaudeville and Las Vegas, Franco would go on to perform all over the world. He began as an opening act with the Harlem Globetrotters in the US, but would go on to perform throughout Europe and was featured in variety and production shows in Blackpool, London, Monte Carlo, Berlin, and many other cities.
Person
Mun, Cynthia, 1967-
Born in the 1960s near Seoul, South Korea, Cynthia Mun was the oldest of her parents' three children. The family immigrated in 1974, after which Mun's siblings were born. She speaks of her mother's work as a seamstress in a Los Angeles Garment District sweatshop and her father's work as a janitor before he was employed as an electrician. She credits teachers and mentors in Los Angeles, who encouraged her and gave her the tools succeed at Westridge School in Pasadena and at Yale University.
Person
Makino, Kaku, 1943-
Kaku Makino, the King of Japanese Buffet, was born in 1943 and raised in Tokyo, Japan, in a traditional, wealthy family. After surviving mumps at age four, he suffered a severe hearing loss. His father encouraged Kaku to play baseball, and he excelled. But his father died when Kaku was twenty years old, and, the oldest of four sons, he had to support the family, and he became a chef--an occupation he followed for twenty years in Tokyo before following his younger brothers to the U.S. in 1989.
Person
Kano, Julie, 1957-
Alternate Names
Julie Kano, was born and raised in Ootsu city in Shiga Prefecture, Japan. Wanting to experience life outside her town of 600 people, Julie migrated to Los Angeles and enrolled at Cal State Northridge to become a social worker. She did not complete her studies, but she did meet and marry her first husband and gave birth to her son. She arrived in Las Vegas in 2000 and now handles the business end of the restaurant Makino.
Person
Tao, Jerry, 1968-
Born in Taiwan, naturalized citizen and District Court Judge Jerry Tao's family exemplifies the ways political systems affect people on the ground. Tao's grandfather wrote speeches for Chiang-Kai-shek until the mid-1960s, when Mao Zedong's Communist party began purging leaders of the previous regime. As a high-ranking government official, Tao's grandfather left China under threat of death and settled in Taiwan.
Person
Ly, Brendan, 1973-
Born in Da Nang, Vietnam, in 1973, Brendan Ly was one of seven children. Because his father fought with the Americans, the family was in danger daily. They escaped by boat in 1978-79 to a refugee camp in Hong Kong, then to Raleigh, North Carolina, for one year and finally to San Jose, California, where Brendan grew up. From the time he was eight years old, Brendan contributed to the family income picking fruit and vegetables in the summers and doing back-of-the-house labor in catering and retail.
Person
Nakanishi, Gene Noboru, 1960-
Jazz musician and restaurateur Gene Nakanishi is a second-generation native-born Las Vegan. In the 1920s, Gene's paternal grandfather worked on the Union Pacific railroad between what is now Zyzzx, California, and Las Vegas. After his oldest child died from lack of available medical care, the elder Nakanishi moved his family to Las Vegas and commuted to his work site. During WWII, when Gene's father was 17, the Nakanishi family was interned at the Heart Mountain War Relocation Center, near Cody, Wyoming.
Person
Sedera, Sanje, 1970-
Born in Sri Lanka [formerly Ceylon] in 1970 into a middle-class family, entrepreneur and Realtor Sanje Sedera speaks of his childhood, his Buddhist home life, and his schooling; of learning English during his two years as a high school exchange student in Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia; of returning to Sri Lanka to complete high school, and of arriving in the U.S. in 1992 on a student visa to attend Idaho State University.
Person